The primary task of the Debrecen Heliophysical Observatory (DHO) has been the most detailed, reliable, and precise documentation of the solar photospheric activity since 1958. This long-term effort resulted in various solar catalogs based on ground-based and space-borne observations. A series of sunspot databases and on-line tools were compiled at DHO: the Debrecen Photoheliographic Data (DPD, 1974-), the dataset based on the Michelson Doppler Imager (MDI) of the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) called SOHO/MDI-Debrecen Data (SDD, 1996(SDD, -2010, and the dataset based on the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) of the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) called SDO/HMI-Debrecen Data (HMIDD, 2010-). User-friendly web-presentations and on-line tools were developed to visualize and search data. As a last step of compilation, the revised version of Greenwich Photoheliographic Results (GPR, 1874(GPR, -1976 catalog was converted to DPD format, and a homogeneous sunspot database covering more than 140 years was created. The database of images for the GPR era was completed with the full-disc drawings of the Hungarian historical observatoriesÓgyalla and Kalocsa and with the polarity drawings of Mount Wilson Observatory. We describe the main characteristics of the available data and on-line tools.

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Sunspot area data are important for studying solar activity and its long-term variations. At the Debrecen Heliophysical Observatory, we compiled three sunspot catalogues: the Debrecen Photoheliographic Data (DPD), the SDO/HMI Debrecen Data (HMIDD) and the SOHO/MDI Debrecen Data. For comparison, we also compiled an additional sunspot catalogue, the Greenwich Photoheliographic Data, from the digitized Royal Greenwich Observatory images for 1974-76. By comparing these catalogues when they overlap in time, we can investigate how various factors influence the measured area of sunspots, and, in addition, we can derive area cross-calibration factors for these catalogues. The main findings are as follows. Poorer seeing increases the individual corrected spot areas and decreases the number of small spots. Interestingly, the net result of these two effects for the total corrected spot area is zero. DPD daily total corrected sunspot areas are 5 per cent smaller than the HMIDD ones. Revised DPD daily total corrected umbra areas are 9 per cent smaller than those of HMIDD. The Greenwich photoheliographic areas are only a few per cent smaller than DPD areas. A 0.2 • difference between the north directions of the DPD and MDI images is found. This value is nearly the same as was found (0.22 • ) by us in a previous paper comparing HMI and MDI images. The area measurement practice (spots smaller than 10 mh were not directly measured but an area of 2 mh was assigned to each) of the Solar Observing Optical Network cannot explain the large area deficit of the Solar Observing Optical Network.